Obama vs. Congressional Black Caucus

Barack Obama gave a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday:

President Obama won accolades from supporters praising his speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Saturday night, but not everyone is convinced the president is invested in his recommitment to fighting Republicans and helping minority communities.

He has urged them to support him:

"I expect all of you to march with me and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We've got work to do, CBC," he said.

Not everyone is happy with him:

"We have a president that yesterday says to the Congressional Black Caucus take off your slippers, implying that black people with 16.7 percent unemployment are staying home in their slippers. I doubt it. They are all looking for jobs and waiting for the president to come up with a plan," said Cheryln Harley LeBon, a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network and former senior counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And it's not exactly a great endorsement when the President of the CBC has this to say:

"If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House," Cleaver told “The Miami Herald” in comments published Sunday. "There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president."

They can't react like they normally would because the President is black. They are backing him only because of his race. As an organization, it makes sense to protect future black leaders who might want to run for office from the bias that would come from this, but it certainly doesn't them right now. Obama's presidency has not been kind of blacks across the United States. African Americans have one of the nation's highest unemployment rates. These are the people who helped get him elected, and he's taken them for granted.

Maxine Waters had this to say:

She is saying what needs to be said. There was great optimism when Obama was elected, but the black community has had to be very patient to get him to help them as he has tried to address national issues. They've suffered:

The CBC has been holding a series of town hall meetings and jobs fairs across the country, where Waters said people have been "circling the blocks to get a chance to talk to employers."

"They want to know that we recognize, and that the president recognizes the pain that is in the African American community," she said.

They continue to be patient, but how long can you be patient? While Obama needs to make a national appeal, he has to give blacks something in order for them to vote for him in the next election. I'm not saying that they won't vote for him next election. I'm saying that they might not vote at all.

Obama can't risk alienating this part of his base. Things are bad. He needs to get find a way to make things better, or else he's toast.